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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24085141">Fills</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/rfsmiley/pseuds/rfsmiley'>rfsmiley</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman &amp; Terry Pratchett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>First Time, Hamilton Lyrics, Hamilton References, Implied Sexual Content, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Oral Fixation, Poetry, Pre-Arrangement (Good Omens), Pre-Relationship, Sonnets, crowley can canonically do really interesting things with his tongue</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 21:48:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,639</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24085141</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/rfsmiley/pseuds/rfsmiley</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>in which RF collects drabbles so they don't get lost. Expect no polish here!</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>92</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>186</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Name That Author Round 3: After Dark, Name That Author Round Four</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Maraschino</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this was an entry for "500 words; 'I hope this doesn't awaken anything in me.'"</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p>The first time it happened in public was in 1952, during a clandestine meeting on the French Riviera. In such a setting, the demon was more insouciant and smug than ever, his smirk visible even in the shade of his wide-brimmed Panama hat as he lounged in his chair. The leggy, languid sprawl was, in fact, drawing the eyes of several would-be widowers at the bar (of both sexes), while Aziraphale, pointedly ignoring both the smirk and the stares, fished in his cocktail for its last few pieces of fruit.</p><p>Later, he would not remember what they had been bickering about, but he did remember the sudden intake of breath from their voyeurs when Crowley reached over, scooped a maraschino cherry out of the angel’s drink with two fingers, and put the entire thing in his mouth, stem and all.</p><p>Aziraphale blinked. The demon’s jaw worked busily for a second, and then Crowley put his fingers back in his mouth and pulled out a scarlet bow.</p><p>“There you are,” he announced proudly, setting it by Aziraphale’s napkin.</p><p>The red stem was wet, the tiny hoops perfectly symmetrical. The angel realized that his mouth was open, and closed it.</p><p>“Closest I’ll come to doing a magic trick for you, angel. Enjoy it.”</p><p>“…Crowley, what on earth…”</p><p>“Comes with the territory.” Crowley shrugged. “Snake demon, you know. One of the perks is that you can do really interesting things with your tongue.”</p><p>Blankly, Aziraphale looked up into the lenses of Crowley’s sunglasses. For a moment the demon’s face was equally blank; and then, abruptly, his eyebrows shot towards his hairline. He lowered the glasses and peered at the angel over the rims.</p><p>“<em>Really,</em>” he drawled.</p><p>“Don’t,” said Aziraphale, immediately.</p><p>“How fascinating.”</p><p>“In fact, don’t even think about it.”</p><p>“Believe me, I’m far more interested in the fact that <em>you’re</em> thinking about it.”</p><p>“I’m not –”</p><p>“– you absolutely <em>are, </em>I can <em>feel </em>it.”</p><p>“You know, a gentleman,” said Aziraphale, clutching at straws, “would never address a situation like this directly.”</p><p>“Good thing I’m not a gentleman,” said Crowley blissfully. “Anyway an oral fixation is not a <em>situation,</em> or if it is it’s easily remedied –”</p><p>“Don’t you tempt me, you old serpent,” Aziraphale said in despair.</p><p>“Oh,” said the demon, very deliberately, leaning forward, “but I might as well, since this is the sort of thing that wouldn’t really require much more of an <em>effort</em>,” and he set his mouth around the word with as much care as he had previously used to handle the cherry. Then he winked. “Would it?”</p><p>The angel stood up, and then instantly wished he hadn’t; he was the one drawing looks now. Beside him, Crowley leaned back in his chair, visibly preening, as Aziraphale considered his options in silence.</p><p>Then, out of the corner of his mouth, he murmured, “A gentleman might be so kind as to offer me his hat.”</p><p>“Not a gentleman,” said Crowley cheerfully, but he passed the angel his Panama anyway.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Something Overdue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>500 words, must be SFW and include the line "this brings back memories."</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>The week after Armageddidn’t, Crowley had taken one look at a newsstand, blinked, and then frantically made every paper in Soho disappear with a snap of his fingers.</p><p>He probably should have tried harder to conceal his excitement, for Aziraphale had been genuinely alarmed when he tumbled gasping into the bookshop, as disheveled as if he had been struck by a lorry. (He had already secured the plane tickets, at that point: the day’s last red-eye to Cairo out of Heathrow, first class, last minute cancellation, shame about the other couple’s lost passports.)</p><p>“A holiday,” he had babbled. “Come on, angel. We’re going on holiday.”</p><p>“Crowley, what on earth -”</p><p>“Please,” he begged. “Please trust me.”</p><p>“I do,” said Aziraphale at once, and the demon had filed <em>that </em>away to think about later: the sudden softening of his expression, the way his eyes had shone, affectionate, certain. “You know that.”</p><p>He hadn’t, actually, but it didn’t matter. The important thing was that, in the end, the angel had said yes, and now they were here, strolling along under a blistering sun, in a beautiful coastal city that neither had visited in over a thousand years. Crowley was fidgeting, alive with nervous energy, his whole body thrumming with sheer anticipation; beside him, the angel was placid. (Time had finally healed his grief, it seemed. Not that that mattered any more.)</p><p>“Oh, this brings back memories,” he sighed, gazing out at the ocean. “My word. What a glorious era that was. It’s lovely to think about, sometimes.”</p><p>“Mmm,” said Crowley, who was actually thinking about a boy and a dog, instead.</p><p>“This is where my old house used to be, just here.”</p><p>He didn’t have to do it, the demon thought, his heart in his throat. The Bentley and the bookshop would have been enough.</p><p>“And down there,” Aziraphale went on, turning to point, “that’s where the library used to –”</p><p>Crowley waited, but the end of the sentence never came; indeed, the angel might suddenly have been carved from stone.</p><p>At the bottom of the hill stood the regal columns of the once-lost Library of Alexandria, in all the splendor that it might have known had it not burned.</p><p>Aziraphale stared at them without comprehension, and then he looked at Crowley.</p><p>“He put it back,” the demon said gently. He had never been more grateful for his sunglasses; his eyes were prickling, which was frankly ridiculous. “Adam Young. He remade the world exactly how it was, but he threw in a few extras. For us.”</p><p>“Extras,” Aziraphale repeated.</p><p>“Yep,” said Crowley. “Or, well, in this case, your greatest achievement,” and he gestured to the library. “You know, angel, I never said, but you really outdid yourself with –”</p><p>He stopped, because there it was again: that brand-new, disconcerting, luminous expression, a baffling addition to Crowley’s catalogue after the span of six thousand years, and he was still wondering what it meant right up until the moment that Aziraphale lunged for him.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Satisfied</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>completely gratuitous GO Hamilton headcanons, based on a tumblr ask answered by Gaiman.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>a little doodle based heavily on <a href="https://redfacesmiley.tumblr.com/post/186200074364/what-are-a-couple-bands-or-songs-aziraphel-would">this tumblr post.</a> Apparently my excitement for the release this weekend had to have some kind of pressure valve.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p>Aziraphale goes to see Hamilton alone.</p><p>Crowley does sound regretful about it, or at least Aziraphale chooses to read regret into his hysterics over the phone. He can’t help but feel a little ruffled, not least because of the hyperbolic drama of the reaction. While he doesn’t understand all of the words the demon uses (something about R and B, and then something wholly undecipherable about a wrapping) he does understand that the response boils down to the same incredulity that chokes Crowley whenever Aziraphale is cognizant of media from the last decade.</p><p>“It’s part of the cultural zeitgeist,” he says peevishly. “And furthermore, the composer is one of ours. There’s no reason not to think that it won’t be a perfectly enjoyable evening.”</p><p>“It’s just… so <em>optimistic</em> of you,” Crowley says, delighted. “Given your tastes.”</p><p>“Oh, tosh.” Aziraphale sniffs. “You also said that about Sweeney Todd, as I recall.”</p><p>“Point,” says Crowley, “except this time I’m not just talking about the subject matter.” He pauses. “Although, if I recall, you were a bit uptight about the American Revolution at the time.”</p><p>“Only because there were some rather untidy demonstrations.”</p><p>He can <em>hear </em>the grin on the other end of the phone. “Well, I wasn’t going to let you have all the fun.”</p><p>“So don’t,” he says, pressing the advantage. “Come with me. Saturday, seven thirty.”</p><p>“Angel, believe me when I say I wish I could,” says Crowley. “Tragically, I’m on the Continent for a week. Some software for offshore accounts to muck up.”</p><p>Aziraphale purses his lips instead of replying. <em>Tragically </em>was an understatement. It had taken him not just one, but two literal miracles to get their tickets – the arrival of a grandchild a week early, and a gentle rearrangement of the Will Call box.</p><p>“It’s fine,” the demon says, sensing his silent agitation. “Go without me. I’ve already seen it, and I can tell you that it really doesn’t matter,” he adds, with an undercurrent of glee creeping back into his voice, “because you're not going to like it.”</p><p>“I might,” says Aziraphale crossly.</p><p>And he does.</p><p>It takes him a while to get into it, admittedly. The young revolutionaries are just as brash as he remembers, but in ways that are different enough to be distracting. The slights at the British monarchy, while amusing, touch on some guarded, tender part of him that he can’t quite identify. A few of the lyrics he misses entirely.</p><p>And then Hamilton gets married, and the sharpest-tongued Schuyler sister raises a glass to him, and pauses.</p><p>The lighting changes. The cast swirls around her; a chorus member lifts the fluted crystal from her fingertips; the music twists and becomes something new. She is remembering their first meeting, and there is a carefully buried pain there. A regret tempered with longing. A very specific kind of grief.</p><p>Aziraphale leans forward a little.</p><p>The setting: a winter revel, with the character Angelica standing alone downstage. Hamilton, still a young braggadocio, slithers up to her and leans in conspiratorially. She is a bit taken aback by such an obvious presumption, but he is undeterred, too cocky to be cautious. His delight in her crackles through their conversation, electric. Anyone watching might have thought that they had already known each other for years.</p><p>“You strike me,” Hamilton purrs, “as a woman who has never been satisfied,” and even an angel can read the innuendo into <em>that</em>.</p><p>Angelica smooths her hands down over her bodice, a self-composing gesture that Aziraphale knows well. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean," she demurs, looking at him sideways. "You forget yourself."</p><p>"You're like me," Hamilton insists, dropping the sexual angle at once, and the phrase reverberates strangely through the cathedral arches of a thousand years, as if someone else's voice is singing it back to Aziraphale in an echo: insistent, inexorable.<em> You're like me. </em>"I'm never satisfied."</p><p>"Is that right?" says Angelica, looking up at him, and oh, the actress is very good. The angel can feel her desire, coming in waves off the stage (at least, he thinks it's hers. It's suddenly hard to be sure).</p><p>Hamilton inclines his head, the corner of his mouth slanting wickedly. "I've never been satisfied."</p><p>It’s already too late for her, Aziraphale can see it. She wants him with every fiber of her being. Well, of course she does, he thinks; he’s not like anyone she’s ever met. But she can’t have him. There are family obligations to think of, powerful ties that are more important than infatuation, and her self-preservation instincts prevent her from being rash. She gently steers her suitor towards a different future and steps away, and, unseen, the angel lets out a long breath as the song rushes towards its conclusion. It is the inevitable outcome. The characters will never be lovers.</p><p>He forgets to inhale again, however, when Angelica looks straight into his box as she sings one of her final lines.</p><p>“At least I keep his eyes in my life.”</p><p><em>You poor girl,</em> Aziraphale thinks, and pity for her moves through him, unaccountably sharp. <em>Yes. And that will have to be enough.</em></p><p>*</p><p>Crowley still finds the whole idea of Aziraphale going to see<em> Hamilton</em> amusing, the angel discovers, as the weeks pass. To his chagrin, it is the predominant topic of conversation when, upon the demon’s return, he drops by the bookshop with an expensive case of Italian wine. Pushed for details as they work through their second bottle, though, he finds that he is strangely reticent about the experience.</p><p>“I just liked it,” he says, groping for the right way to say how it had touched him. “It was clever.”</p><p>“Clever,” Crowley repeats, and he laughs. “Historical revisionism with a pop spin, yes, I’d call that clever. I’d go so far as to call it opportunistic.”</p><p>“Sour grapes,” says Aziraphale, momentarily amused. “You’re just cross because the composer has proved impervious to corruption.”</p><p>“I haven’t tried that hard,” says the demon sulkily.</p><p>“Anyway, it’s more profound than that,” Aziraphale goes on. “You know it is. The themes are incredibly –” and he gestures. He must be tipsier than he thought; he can’t quite find the words he wants. “The lack of control, the, the fear –”</p><p>“The fear?” says Crowley, curiously, when he falters.</p><p>“You know,” says Aziraphale, floundering. “The fear of – wasting time, or –” He swallows. “ – Or getting it wrong.” He still can’t quite articulate it. “The consequences.”</p><p>Crowley does not reply to that. The angel wishes that he could see his eyes; the sunglasses are concealing whatever emotions he’s feeling. Against his will, he thinks of Hamilton looking at Angelica: the way his eyes had glittered, the way she had met his gaze, the way the air had seemed to shimmer between them, charged and electric.</p><p>The awkward question tumbles out of him before he can stop it.</p><p>“Did you have a favorite character?”</p><p>His companion laughs, startled. “What?”</p><p>“When you saw it,” he presses. “Did you?”</p><p>The demon pours himself another drink, delaying his answer. Aziraphale can tell he is taken aback by the question, just by the way he holds himself: a little stiff, a little uncertain as to how vulnerable he should allow himself to be. But, eventually, he mutters an answer.</p><p>"Well," he says. "I liked Aaron Burr.”</p><p>“Burr?” Aziraphale repeats, genuinely surprised. “Really?”</p><p>Crowley laughs again, and this time it sounds forced. “Angel, I’m beginning to think we saw very different shows.”</p><p>Aziraphale ponders this. It’s an interesting thought, but then, how different could the two stagings be? He remembers Burr having some excellent lines (though he doesn’t remember “Wait For It” very well, for some reason), but he was not blown away by the character, a figure that paled in comparison to Hamilton’s swagger and cocksure brilliance. For Crowley to prefer the reticence is an interesting choice, and one that does not make sense to him.</p><p>(It will not make sense to him until much later, in the months after a failed Armaggedon, when he finally buys the cast recording on something called a CD-Rom, and re-listens to a song that says: <em>Love doesn't discriminate </em><em>|</em><em> between the sinners and the saints; </em><em>it takes and it takes and it takes | and we keep loving anyway</em><em>…</em>)</p><p>“That’s entirely possible,” he says, now. “I wish I hadn’t gone without you.”</p><p>“I really didn’t think you were going to like it,” says Crowley, shrugging. “Guess you can still surprise me.”</p><p>“ ‘Age does not wither, nor custom stale,’” says Aziraphale, smiling.</p><p>“ ‘-- than are dreamt of in my philosophy,’” says the demon, parrying deliberately, and his answering grin is sharp as a knife. “Really, what I’m hearing is that I should have asked you to come when I saw it first, all those months ago.”</p><p>“You should always ask me,” the angel says firmly. “In the future, whatever it is, you should ask me.”</p><p>Crowley looks at him sidelong. “What if I don’t think you’re going to say yes?” he inquires.</p><p>Aziraphale considers it for a moment.</p><p>“Well,” he says. “I might.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Sonnet for the Lovers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>don't really want to talk about it thanks! sometimes I am more embarrassing than usual</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>Of course they tried it, once. Both curious as cats;</p><p>both given flesh among the many pleasures of</p><p>the world; both prone to drink. Of course it came to that</p><p>(though neither, yet, had any consciousness of <em>love</em>)<em>.</em></p><p>It doesn’t matter which one voiced it first: the thought</p><p>had come to each in turn, <em>if he, would I? </em><em>well,</em><em> yes.</em></p><p>The subject thus was broached, the glasses drained, the hot</p><p>first touch exchanged, each of the movements crisp as chess.</p><p>The game was short, a draw. Too urgent to be sin,</p><p>the profane word, most holy vice upon this earth,</p><p>was writ in soft confessions on the other’s skin.</p><p>Dawn left them in a ruin of pretended mirth.</p><p> </p><p>The truth was that, through aching centuries apart,</p><p>Each wore it as a talisman against the heart.</p>
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